GOODWIN’S WEEKLY — JUNE 28, 1913
THE JUDGE’S FISH STORY.
Years ago Judge McCarty told me a fish story. It happened in midwinter, and no one could contradict him; And it had to do with the Fish Lake country, [Sevier County, Utah] and no one had time to go there and verify.
On each succeeding June he has been given an opportunity to withdraw his statement—or at least to modify; but he stood firm. He declared the fish were so thick in the stream emptying into Fish lake that one had to get out of the wagon and chase them away from the ford [part of the stream shallow enough to walk across], so the hoofs and wheels would not kill them. It would be contempt of court for a tenderfoot to honestly express his opinion of that story.
But the other day Fred Chambers, state game warden, came along with the beating of it. I told him what Judge McCarty had told me about the fish at the ford.
“It’s true,“ said Chambers. “Absolutely true. Why, when I was down there last year we drove up to the bank of the river and I got out to shoo the fish away from the ford, so we wouldn’t mash them, and one of the biggest trout poked his head out of the water, and he said to me: ‘Go on there, or I’ll swallow you—you big Weber county wallyhoo.’”
And neither Fred nor I know what is a wallyhoo.
From— Goodwin's Weekly : A Thinking Paper for Thinking People. (Salt Lake City, Utah), 28 June 1913. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress.
